Search Members Help

» Welcome Guest
[ Log In :: Register ]

Mini-ITX Boards Sale, Fanless BareBones Mini-ITX, Bootable 1G DSL USBs, 533MHz Fanless PC <-- SALE $200 each!
Get The Official Damn Small Linux Book. DSL Market , Great VPS hosting provided by Tektonic
Pages: (5) </ [1] 2 3 4 5 >/

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

reply to topic new topic new poll
Topic: The future of Damn Small Linux< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Daniele Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 28
Joined: Sep. 2003
Posted: Jan. 05 2004,00:01 QUOTE

Please don't take this as flame or criticism at all.
I don't have a deep knowledge of the command line, even if I use it when necessary, but I believe that I have a pretty good insight of Linux distros.
I have seen them coming, going, being very popular and then losing their popularity and even disappearing...Just an example? Jamd Linux. It was very popular, but now it is risking to disappear, because it is based on Red Hat 9, the last release was in May 2003 and nobody knows what happened to the mantainer.
The above was of course only an example, because John releases and updates very often.
Now, what I am wondering is: what makes the difference between a 'fashionable' distro and a distro which is here to stay?
A distro which is here to stay is IMHO one used by enough people as their daily main operating system.
Is that the case with DSL? I can't be sure about that, but what I know is that I have never seen anybody, in any forum except for this one, advising new users DSL as their first or main distro, EXCEPT in the case of people looking for a distro for very old hardware.
So what would guarantee that DSL is not just a temporary fashion, IMHO?
FLEXIBILITY ABOUT ITS SIZE
50 MB is very 'cool', but not enough by far to make it a comfortable OS for daily use, IMHO
Maybe my fellow users here and even John will tell me that they don't care, in which case I apologize for this post.
As I said in another occasion, there is a big gap in the niche of distros which give you a nice and yet fully featured install of about 200 MBs.
There are Vector and Morphix, but outside their followers they don't seem to attract many people, for various reasons.
Of course you can perform a custom lightweight install with any 'mainstream' distro, but anybody who has ever tried that with a rpm distro knows what a pain that is.
Debian is much better suited, IMHO, but a 'pure' Debian install is not the easiest thing in the world...
Besides, it's much better to have a distro where the best apps, considering the size, have already been chosen by somebody very experienced.
Well, sorry for this long post and I am hoping to hear your opinions
Daniele
Back to top
Profile PM 
cbagger01 Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003
Posted: Jan. 05 2004,01:09 QUOTE

FYI,

50MB is the size of the Compressed filesystem.

If you were to uncompress DSL (hard disk install), it would fall roughly in line with a 200MB distro in terms of functionality and space.

One difference between DSL and other distros is that because it is Debian-based, it will always be upgradable even if the people who work on it were to suddenly abandon the project.  Other than the non-standard XWindows system (and in this case non-standard = good, especially if you own an old computer), it should be pretty easy to upgrade just about any part of DSL. And if you really wanted to upgrade XWindows, you could always install the standard XFree86 Debian package and then even that part of the distro would be upgradable.

I guess that what I am trying to say is:

In my opinion, it really doesn't matter whether DSL is considered "fashionable" or not. In fact, since DSL was originally supposed to be a business card live CD, it's growth as a hard disk based traditional distribution is an unintended bonus.

So, based on the project's goals it is already a success even if no future changes are ever made to DSL. For example, I haven't seen much new output from the creators of the 'ls' command but I wouldn't interpret this inactivity as a failure.

Not meant to be criticism. Just my $0.02
Back to top
Profile PM 
Daniele Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 28
Joined: Sep. 2003
Posted: Jan. 05 2004,01:25 QUOTE

Quote (cbagger01 @ Jan. 04 2004,20:09)
Not meant to be criticism. Just my $0.02

Thanks for your opinion! :)
Back to top
Profile PM 
CappyCaffeine Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 64
Joined: Jan. 2004
Posted: Jan. 05 2004,02:35 QUOTE

A very thoughtful post, Daniele!

It is a very good question since most Linux users realize but sometimes refuse to admit, standardization is what makes a product continue to grow and not die a depressing death. Standards for cars, TVs, Radios, VCRs (but Beta was betta!) and of course, Windows have kept their longevity unless a superior technology comes to pass.. VCRs are dying due to DVD, analog TV will give way to Digital, etc.

Now we have Linux whose main problem to date is what it "should" be. Desktop, Server, Workstation, what the? Unfortunatly most jacks-of-all-trades become masters of none.
There are some excellent efforts to try and specialize distributions, and although many are saddened by RedHat's departure from consumer products, their business model is sound. Concentrate on one product (Enterprise level OS) and make it the best.

Enthusiaist support is admirable, but most people still need to work a day job. John is doing an incredible job on DSL, but can that momentum be continued indefinitely? Doubtful, though I hope he does!

I agree that the continuation of a distro is dependent on the number of users and their feedback (monetarily or otherwise) to the creators/authors.

One such distribution that seems to be what you feel is a niche product is Peanut Linux which is still a favorite and I had running for 2 years on a work machine, before we had to upgrade all machines to WinXP Pro because of new software.

Interestingly, the server uses Redhat 7.3 with a specialized kernel, but we access the files via a WinXP client. Best of both worlds? Probably. Hopefully, we'll see.

So will DSL last? There are a lot of "dead" computers out there that would be perfectly usable with DSL for the most common applications used. Internet surfing, email, word processing, and accounting packages DO NOT NEED a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz with 1 GB of memory and 250 GB of hard drive space.

However, Home Theater PCs, editing video and burning DVDs do need more horsepower.. I believe that the big guns like Sony, Matushita, RCA and good ole GE are probably developing closed boxes that do all of the above with the same flexibility as contemporary operating systems.  Gateway is already testing the waters of computer/consumer electronics convergence and their product line looks pretty impressive.

I can forsee a fork between a basic system that may eventually replace the telephone! Email, voice, messaging, and daily mundane tasks like paying bills and managing finances on one type of machine versus "entertainment" units for gaming and Digital photography/video applications on another.

Tweaking may become less commonplace. 40 years ago, teenagers could become gearheads and tinker with their cars. Now, you can't do much servicing on your own car without specific training.  Computers will probably go the same route in the next 40 years if not sooner.

So enjoy the distros while you can since they may all be doomed!  (I should get some flames for this post! :)

Cappy
Back to top
Profile PM MSN 
Daniele Offline





Group: Members
Posts: 28
Joined: Sep. 2003
Posted: Jan. 05 2004,03:45 QUOTE

Quote (CappyCaffeine @ Jan. 04 2004,21:35)
A very thoughtful post, Daniele!

Cappy

So is yours and I don't have very much to add  :)

Except that if John or somebody else was ever to make such a distro, I'd like to see some of the apps which make me proud of being a linux user: Open Office, Evolution (is it possible? how many Gnome libraries would it need?) K3b (how many Kde libraries needed?), Xfce4, Tuxracer (I am particularly fascinated by it, sorry)....
Such a distro could be highly successful. Not bloated at all, and yet offering the very best of linux.
Back to top
Profile PM 
23 replies since Jan. 05 2004,00:01 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

[ Track this topic :: Email this topic :: Print this topic ]

Pages: (5) </ [1] 2 3 4 5 >/
reply to topic new topic new poll
Quick Reply: The future of Damn Small Linux

Do you wish to enable your signature for this post?
Do you wish to enable emoticons for this post?
Track this topic
View All Emoticons
View iB Code